In recent years, there are mobile terminals such as mobile phones that employ the input apparatus having touch sensors, such as touch panels, touch switches and the like, as the input apparatus such as operation units, switches and the like to receive contact operations by users. Such input apparatus having touch sensors are popularly employed not only by the mobile terminals but also by information equipments such as calculators, ticket vending machines, home electric appliances such as microwaves, TV sets and lighting equipment, industrial equipment (FA equipment) and the like.
There are a variety of known types of those touch sensors, such as a resistive film type, a capacitive type, an optical type and the like. However, touch sensors of any of these types receive a touch input by a finger or a stylus pen and, unlike a mechanical push-button switch, touch sensors themselves are not physically depressed when touched.
Incidentally, the input apparatus of late years often use a variety of graphical user interface (Graphical User Interface, hereinafter referred to as “GUI”) as user interface (hereinafter, referred to as “UI”). Such a trend is widely seen not only in the input apparatus using the touch sensors set forth above but also in personal computers (PCs), for example, to be operated by input devices such as keyboards, mice and the like. In order to perform an input to the input apparatus having GUI implemented therein by using input device, an operator clicks (single click and double click), drags or slides an icon and the like displayed on a display unit (screen).
There are a variety of objects such as the icons used for GUI. Especially, there are objects to prompt the contact operation which are, for example, in shape of graphically depicted keys and buttons on the screen to detect the contact operation and the like to the object by the operator. In addition, there also are numerous objects imitating actual devices such as, for example, slide controllers used for volume control. Adopting such objects can make operations required to the operator exceedingly intuitive and clear. In operating the PC, the operator can carry out operations to the objects of GUI set forth above by using the input device such as the mouse.
FIG. 9 illustrates slide bars used by the operator when operating with the input device such as the mouse in a conventional GUI environment.
An object 100 illustrated in FIG. 9(A) is an input object including a slide bar 200 used to change a variable value for such as, for example, volume control. The operator can change a predetermined variable value using the slide bar 200 between, for example, a minimum value at a left end and a maximum value at a right end. A knob 300 on the slide bar 200 indicates a current variable value. The operator can adjust the predetermined variable value by shifting the knob 300 with the input device such as the mouse.
There are some slide bars that, although allowing the operator to freely shift the knob 300, stops the knob 300 only at predetermined positions such as, for example, positions numbered (1)-(9) illustrated under the object 100 in FIG. 9(A). That is, when the operator shifts the knob 300 on such a slide bar, the display displays a smooth movement of the knob 300 in accordance with the shift. However, when the operator finishes an input to shift the knob 300 and releases the knob 300, the knob 300 is displayed to be stopping at a closest position among the predetermined positions numbered (1)-(9) illustrated under the object 100 in FIG. 9(A). Such a slide bar is used to change the predetermined valuable value not by a substantial amount in an analogue method but by levels in a digital method. The slide bar behaving in this manner is particularly referred to as a “track bar” in the present application.
An object 100 illustrated in FIG. 9(B) is an object of a window illustrating a web page of the Internet, for example.
The window of the object 100 illustrated in FIG. 9(B) has a slide bar 200 on a right side thereof. As illustrated in FIG. 9(B), a window A illustrated by the object 100 is displaying contents including a plurality of items but not able to display all of the contents due to its current size. Therefore, the window A of the object 100 inevitably displays a part of the contents.
In this case, in order to display an undisplayed part in the window A, the operator shifts a knob 300 of the slide bar 200 on the right side, thereby the operator can scroll through the contents displayed in the window A in accordance with a position of the knob 300. For example, in order to display Item 1 and a part of Item 2, which are not displayed in the window A illustrated in FIG. 9(B), the operator shifts the knob 300 of the slide bar 200 upward. Similarly, in order to display an entire Item 5, a part of which is displayed in the window A in FIG. 9(B), the operator shifts the knob 300 of the slide bar 200 downward.
As described above, the operator can scroll up to a top of the contents by shifting the knob 300 to an upper end and scroll down to a bottom of the contents by shifting the knob 300 to a lower end. In addition, the slide bar 200 is also provided with an arrow 400 at each of the upper end and the lower end thereof. These arrows allow the operator to scroll the contents by a predetermined amount such as, for example, one line at a time, in response to a click operation to them by the operator.
Such a slide bar allows the operator to minutely shift the knob 300 such that the contents are minutely moved by, for example, one line. The slide bar allows to display a part of the contents and to scroll through the contents, even when the contents include a large amount (for example, items) to be displayed. The slide bar behaving in this manner is particularly referred to as a “scroll bar” in the present application. That is, in the present application the “slide bar” includes both of the “track bar” and the “scroll bar” described above.
Some of the track bars and the scroll bars described above allow the operator to shift the knob 300, and to click at a position of the slide bar 200 where the knob 300 is not positioned, as well. As such, by clicking a position without the knob 300 on the slide bar 20 in this manner, the operator can gradually shift the knob 300 to the clicked position. Moreover, there also are the track bars and the scroll bars that can act as described above in response to continuous click, that is, a so-called “holding down”, which is an operation to hold clicking.
Each of the slide bars described above can provide excellent operability to the operator according to types of the contents and application software used in the input apparatus. Therefore, these slide bars are popularly used as GUI not only for the input devices such as the keyboard and the mouse to operate the PC but also for the input apparatus of various terminals including the mobile phones. In contact operation of the slide bars described above by using the input device other than the keyboard and the mouse, the operator can use a direction key and the like of the mobile phone, for example.
When the input apparatus having the touch sensors set forth above adopt the track bar and the scroll bar described above, the input apparatus can provide the operator with the required operations more clearly and intuitively than operations of the PCs using the input device such as the key board and the mouse. In this case, the input apparatus can detect a contact to the touch sensor corresponding to a position of the slide bar and the knob displayed on the display unit, that is, an operation to directly touch or slide by an operator's fingertip. Thereby, the operator can operate with the fingertip just like actually sliding a knob of a mechanical slide controller. In addition, since such an input apparatus relates a slide amount of the operator's finger to that of the knob (displayed), it can respond to the contact operation of the operator more accurately than the input devices such as the keyboard and the mouse.
As such, when detecting an operation to the slide bar such as the track bar and the scroll bar as described above, the input apparatus having the touch sensor cannot accurately respond to the contact operation by the operator on the shift if the contact detected by the touch sensor is not accurate. Accordingly, there is suggested a technique, by using a statistical method, to correct the position of the contact detected by the touch sensor (for example, see Patent Document 1).